Mohamed El-Erian is chief executive and co-chief investment officer at Pimco, the world’s largest bond manager. He has led its diversification into several asset classes including equities, hedge funds and real estate. In an interview with Financial News, to be published on Monday, he provides a progress report.

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Ahead of this, FN is publishing five bite-size extracts from the interview.

Pimco is building an equities division. Have you considered buying one?

We do not want to be distracted from the interests of our clients.

Which 2014 investment opportunities are special?

We expect European banks to be stepping up their disposal of assets. We believe that there are likely to be some particularly compelling opportunities to pick up good assets at attractive longer-term prices.

How do you think the US Federal Reserve has been handling its monetary taper?

It finally got to the right place in December but it did so in a manner that could have been handled better.

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You have taken direct control of Pimco’s Global Multi-Asset fund following performance issues. How are you repositioning it?

We are emphasising much greater differentiation between asset classes. Many asset prices have benefited from policy support which, going forward may be less effective.

Your family is Egyptian. How do you view the situation out there?

It is navigating this extremely challenging transition with a set of less than compelling conditions. Almost by definition this will be bumpy multi-year transition. It is easy to get discouraged given all the challenges, false starts and disappointments. But would be to ignore some impressive gains taking place at the grass roots level. Specifically, for the first time in a very long time, Egyptians feel they can influence their destiny.